Landcare and bushcare volunteers in Penrith provide more than 4,000 hours of service
01 Jan 2019
A Greater Sydney Local Land Services survey has found landcare and bushcare volunteers in Penrith contributed 4,556 hours of environmental service in the 2021/2022 financial year.
Greater Sydney Regional Landcare Coordinator Madeleine Florin said their contribution equated to $190,076 worth of conservation efforts to protect and restore the area’s world-renowned bushland and $173,290 of avoided healthcare costs.
“Penrith is home to 13 groups compromising of 430 regular volunteers carrying out activities including bush regeneration, tree planting (with 36,000 plants propagated), community education and advocacy work,” Madeleine said.
“Local groups include the Cumberland Land Conservancy and Mulgoa Valley Landcare. Both groups are protecting and enhancing important remnants of Cumberland Plain Woodland.”
Landcare and Bushcare groups in the area have been recently contributing to an exciting project with Western Sydney University to identify and locate platypus in Penrith’s local creeks.
Finding platypus is one more reminder of why Landcare and Bushcare’s work to maintain healthy habitat is so important. A Greater Sydney Local Land Services survey representing the state of landcare and bushcare in the Greater Sydney region for 2021/2022 has highlighted the integral role landcare and bushcare volunteers play in the enhancement, maintenance and protection of Sydney’s unique and beautiful bushland.
“Overall across the Greater Sydney region nearly 900 groups were engaged in bushcare and landcare activities, with 7,100 regular volunteers and 11,791 one-off volunteers contributing a total of 187,362 hours of work,” Madeleine said.
“This work is estimated to be equal to $7.8 million of in-kind labour costs which is a truly remarkable achievement given the first half of 2021/22 resulted in reduced numbers of workdays and volunteers due to COVID-19,
“While regular volunteer numbers declined by 30%, the number of one-off volunteers more than doubled compared to the last survey in 2019/20 and there was a 13% increase in the number of hours worked.
“Community health, wellbeing, citizen science, specialist skills and community education are all additional benefits that environmental volunteers provide to our region.
“They are very much the unsung heroes of our natural environment, working quietly behind the scenes purely for the love and passion for what they do.”
Greater Sydney Local Land Services provided $183,949 to landcare and bushcare groups, supporting them to continue work restoring and maintaining environmental assets.
Funding was provided to the groups via the NSW Landcare Program, the National Landcare Program and other NSW Government funding.
Greater Sydney Local Land Services surveys landcare and bushcare groups across the region every two years to track the wellbeing of the volunteer community.
“This information helps us to understand the type of support these volunteers need and promote the benefits off environmental volunteering across the region,” Madeleine said.